The Agrarian Programme of Social-Democracy in the First Russian Revolution, 1905-1907

2. Local Self-Government as a “Bulwark Against Reaction”

... “Inthe shape of local self-government bodies which will possess the
land,” said Plekhanov at Stockholm, “it [municipalisation] will create a
bulwark against reaction. And a very powerful bulwark it will be. Take our
Cossacks for example” (p. 45). Well, we shall “take our
Cossacks” and see what the reference to them is worth. But first of all,
let us examine the general grounds for this opinion that local self-government
is capable of being a bulwark against reaction. That view has been propounded by
our municipalisers on innumerable occasions, and it will be sufficient to quote
a passage from John’s speech to supplement Plekhanov’s
formula. “What is the difference between nationalisation and
municipalisation of the land if we admit that both are feasible and equally
bound up with the democratisation of the political system? The difference is
that municipalisation is better able to consolidate the gains of the revolution,
the democratic system, and will serve as the basis for its further development,
whereas nationalisation will merely consolidate the power of the state”
(p. 112).

TheMensheviks actually deny the possibility of guarantees against restoration,
and in the very same breath produce “guarantees” and
“bulwarks” like conjurers. doing a trick in front of an
audience. Just think a little, gentle men! How can local self-government be a
bulwark against reaction, or consolidate the gains of the revolution? There can
be only one bulwark against reaction and one means of consolidating the gains
of the revolution, namely, the class-consciousness and organisation of the
masses of the proletariat and the peasantry. And in a capitalist state which is
centralised, not by the arbitrary will of the bureaucracy, but by the
inexorable demands of economic development, that organisation must find
expression in a single force welded together throughout the state. Without a
centralised peasant movement, without a centralised nation wide political
struggle of the peasantry led by a centralised proletariat,there can be
noserious “revolutionary gains” worthy of
“consolidation”; there can be no “bulwark against
reaction”.

Localself-government that is at all really democratic isimpossibleunless landlord rule is completely overthrown and landlordism is
abolished. While admitting this in words, the Mensheviks, with amazing
light-mindedness, refuse to consider what it implies in deeds. In deeds, it
cannot be attained unless the revolutionary classes conquer political power
throughout the state; and one would have thought that two years of revolution
would have taught even the most obdurate “man in the muffler” that
these classes in Russia can only be the proletariat and the peasantry. To be
victorious, the “peasant agrarian revolution” of which you gentlemen
speak must, as such, as a peasant revolution, become the central authority
throughout the state.

Thedemocratic self-governing bodies can be onlyparticlesof such a
central authority of the democratic peasantry. Only bycombatingthe
local and regional disunity of the peasantry, only by advocating, preparing, and
organising a nation-wide, all-Russian, centralised movement, can real service
be rendered to the cause of “peasant agrarian revolution”, and not
to the encouragement of parochial backwardness and local provincial
stupefaction of the peasantry. It is precisely this stupefaction that you,
Mr. Plekhanov and Mr. John, are serving when you advocate the preposterous and
arch-reactionary idea that local self government can become a “bulwark
against reaction”, or that it can “consolidate the gains of the
revolution”. For the experience of the two years of the Russian revolution
has plainly demonstrated that it was precisely this local and regional disunity
of the peasant movement (the soldiers’ movement is part of the peasant movement)
that was most of all responsible for the defeat.

Topresent a programme of a “peasant agrarian revolution and associate itonlywith the democratisation of local self-government and not of the
central government, to hold the former up as a genuine “bulwark” and
“consolidation”, is in reality nothing but a Cadetdeal with

			    reaction.[1]TheCadets lay stress on local “democratic” self-government because
they do not want, or dare, to touch uponmore importantquestions. The Mensheviks did not realise what a big word they uttered
when they admitted that the “peas ant agrarian revolution” is
the task of the day, and in their political commentary to this agrarian
programme they displayed the acme of provincial narrow-mindedness.

Hereis a sample of John’s reasoning, if you please:

“ComradeLenin is afraid that the reaction will wrest the
   confiscated lands from the local self-government bodies; if that can be
   said of the lands which may pass into the hands of the state, it cannot
   possibly be said of municipalised lands. Even the autocratic Russian
   Government could not take away tile land from the local government bodies
   of Armenia, as that called forth strong resistance on the part of the
   population” (p. 113).

“ComradeLenin is afraid that the reaction will wrest the
   confiscated lands from the local self-government bodies; if that can be
   said of the lands which may pass into the hands of the state, it cannot
   possibly be said of municipalised lands. Even the autocratic Russian
   Government could not take away tile land from the local government bodies
   of Armenia, as that called forth strong resistance on the part of the
   population” (p. 113).

Superb,is it not? The whole history of the autocracy is one of
wholesale grabbing of local, regional, and national lands; and our
wiseacres try to reassure the people who are becoming stupefied in their
provincial isolation by arguing that “even the autocracy” did
not take away the land from the Armenianchurches, although it had
begun to do so, and was in fact prevented from doing soonlyby
the all-Russian revolution.... In the centre autocracy, and in the
provinces “Armenian lands” which “it dares not take
away”.... How has so much philistine stupidity penetrated our
Social-Democratic movement?

Andhere are Plekhanov’s Cossacks:

“Takeour Cossacks. They behave like downright reactionaries; yet
   if the [autocratic] government dared to lay hands on their land, they would
   rise against it to a man. Consequently, the merit of municipalisation lies
   precisely in that it will prove of use even in the event of restoration
   (p. 45).

“Takeour Cossacks. They behave like downright reactionaries; yet
   if the [autocratic] government dared to lay hands on their land, they would
   rise against it to a man. Consequently, the merit of municipalisation lies
   precisely in that it will prove of use even in the event of restoration
   (p. 45).

“Consequently”,indeed! If the autocracy rose against the
defenders of the autocracy, then the defenders of the autocracy would rise
against the autocracy. What profundity! Cossack landownership, however, is
of use not only in the event of restoration, but also as a means of
upholding what must be overthrown before it can be restored. Speaking in
opposition to Plekhanov, Schmidt called attention to this interesting
aspect of municipalisation. He said:

“Letme remind you that the autocracy had granted certain
   privileges to the Cossacks a month ago. Consequently, it is not afraid
   of municipalisation, for the Cossacks’ lands even now are managed
   in a manner which greatly resembles municipalisation..,. It
   [municipalisation] is going to play a counter-revolutionary role”
   (pp. 123-24).

“Letme remind you that the autocracy had granted certain
   privileges to the Cossacks a month ago. Consequently, it is not afraid
   of municipalisation, for the Cossacks’ lands even now are managed
   in a manner which greatly resembles municipalisation..,. It
   [municipalisation] is going to play a counter-revolutionary role”
   (pp. 123-24).

Plekhanovbecame so excited over that speech that he interrupted the
speaker (on quite an unimportant point. to ask him whether he was speaking
about the Orenburg Cossacks) and tried to upset the standing orders by
demanding the floor out of his turn to make a statement. Subsequently he
submitted the following written statement:

“ComradeSchmidt misquoted my reference to the Cossacks. I made no
   reference to:the Orenburg Cossacks at all. I said: look at the Cossacks;
   they are behaving like arch-reactionaries; nevertheless, if the government
   tried to lay hands on their land, they would rise against it to a man. And
   so would, more or less, all the regional bodies to whom the confiscated
   landlords’ land would be transferred by the revolution, if any such attempt
   were made. And such behaviour on their part would be one of the guarantees
   against reaction in the event of restoration” (p. 127).

“ComradeSchmidt misquoted my reference to the Cossacks. I made no
   reference to:the Orenburg Cossacks at all. I said: look at the Cossacks;
   they are behaving like arch-reactionaries; nevertheless, if the government
   tried to lay hands on their land, they would rise against it to a man. And
   so would, more or less, all the regional bodies to whom the confiscated
   landlords’ land would be transferred by the revolution, if any such attempt
   were made. And such behaviour on their part would be one of the guarantees
   against reaction in the event of restoration” (p. 127).

Itis a brilliant plan, of course, to overthrow the autocracy without
touching the autocracy: to take certain regions away from it and leave it
to regain them if it can! It is almost as brilliant as the idea of
expropriating capitalism through the savings-banks. But that is not the
point just now. The point is that regional municipalisation, which
“should” play a wonderful role after the victorious revolution,
isnowplaying a counter-revolutionary role. And that is the point
that Plekhanov evaded!

Atthe present time the Cossack lands represent real
municipalisation. Large regions belong to separate Cossack troops—the
Orenburg, Don, and others. The Cossacks possess an average of52
dessiatins per household, the peasants an average of 11 dessiatins. In
addition, the Orenburg Cossacks own 1,300,000 dessiatins of “army
lands”; the Don Cossacks, 1,900,000 dessiatins, etc. This
“municipalisation” is the breeding-ground of purely feudal
relations. This actually existing municipalisation involves the caste and
regional isolation of the peasants, who are split up by differences in the
size of holdings, amount of taxes paid, and terms of medieval land tenure
as a reward for service, and so forth. “Municipalisation” does
not assist the general democratic movement, it serves to disintegrate it,
to split up into regions and thus weaken what can be victorious only as a
centralised force; it serves to alienate one region from another.

Andin the Second Duma we find theRight CossackKaraulov
speaking insupport of Stolypin(asserting that Stolypin in his
declaration also agreed to the compulsory shifting of land boundaries),denouncingnationalisation no less strongly than Plekhanov,and openly declaring in favour of municipalisation by regions(18th session, March 29, 1907, Stenographic Record, p.1366).

TheRight-wing Cossack Karaulov grasped the crux of the matter a
thousand times more correctly than Maslov and Plekhanov. The division into
regions is aguarantee against revolution. If the Russian
peasantry (with the aid of a centralised, not “regional”,
proletarian movement) fails to break the bounds of its regional isolation
and organise an all-Russian movement, the revolution willalwaysbe beaten by the representatives of the various privileged regions which
the centralised authority of the old regime will use in the struggle as,
necessity requires.

Municipalisationis areactionaryslogan, which idealises the
medieval isolation of the regions, and dulls the peasantry’s
consciousness of the heed for a centralised agrarian revolution.

[1]Ihave dealt more fully with this in the Report. (See present edition,
Vol. 10, pp. 337-38.—Ed.)  Here I shall add an extract from a
speech by the Menshevik Novosedsky, which I did not hear (see the Report)
at the Congress, but which corroborates this most strikingly.Opposing the amendment to substitute. the words “democratic republic” for
“democratic state”, Novosedsky said: ... “In the event, of truly
democratic local self-government being established, the programme now
adopted may be carried into effecteven with a degree of
democratisation of the central government which cannot be described as the
highest degree of Its democratisation.Even under democratisation
of a comparative degree, so to speak, municipalisation will not be harmful,
but useful.” (p. 138. Our italics.) That is as clear as clear can
he. A peasant agrarian revolutionwithoutthe overthrow of the
autocracy—such is the highly reactionary idea The Mensheviks advocate.
—Lenin